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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Done, Done...Well Almost Done

Yesterday I wrote "THE END" to Zombie Apocalypse: Redemption. YEAHHHHH ME!

It's been a long time coming with life getting in the way. What I thought would be a three week project at best, turned out to be almost six weeks and counting. As any decent writer will tell you writing "the end" at the end of a first draft is only the beginning.

Now begins the rest period when I let my story sit and I walk away from it for a week. It will sit in my hard drive, flash drive, and dropbox for that long. Long enough for me to forget bits and pieces of the story while I focus all my attention on another work in progress....like "Surviving Hank." The main character is the one I use for the "Know Your Character" tab up top. This story has been developing my one part of my brain while other issues took precedence.

Next week in between and after wedding ceremonies, I will print out a copy of Zombie Apocalypse and go through it and check for typos, grammar errors, and flesh it out. I used to write novels copiously and then spend hours painstakingly editing and cutting the manuscript down to size. Now I do the opposite. I write sparingly just some good bones with sketchy details. It's my BOOM, BOOM, BOOM rhythm. Think huge kettle drums pounding. But as any artist or musician knows it takes orchestration, tempo, lulls, and peaks. The same is true with writing a good story.

In a previous post I talk about the rhythm of the stories I write. It takes creative juices flowing, blessing from the muse, and the stubbornness of a bull to fully complete a good story. Once I put in the rhythm, this will the end of the second draft. At this point I will wait forty-eight hours to reread the changes. I will make the changes and tweak it one final time. Then another week it will sit on my hard drive, flash drive, and dropbox. Once this final read is over, I'll deem it publishable and I'll use readers as a sounding board, or scrap the project.

I can hear you now...what a waste of time. This is a point of view and for me an arguable point. Each time I write a story I stretch my creative talents. I try new techniques. I stretch my boundaries like actually writing horror. But most importantly, I become a better writer. Why be mediocre when you can be the best you can be?

In this day and age of self publishing too much trash gets published. I know many writers will be offended by me calling their babies trash, but ask anyone not related or a friend of the author. While the image of self-publishing is changing too many authors rush the process and put out a substandard product they later regret. Once it's out there, it's out there for the whole world to see.